Category: Albums

CAN – FLOW MOTION / SAW DELIGHT / CAN / RITE TIME

Well, here we enter a controversial part of the Can history. Controversial, because popular opinion generally states that these albums weren’t very good. So, what does hindsight and remastering do for the embarrassing end of the Can catalogue? Well, firstly, they’ve rubbed “Out Of Reach” off the discography. It’s not listed on their site nor is it getting a remaster. So they’ve owned up to “Out Of Reach” being crap, but they’ve also represented 3 other albums of that era in this last blast of remasters.

It all starts with 1976’s “Flow Motion” which saw them getting on Top Of The Pop’s with the opening track “I Want More”. Obviously, this is their most commercial sounding album, and is actually a whole lot of fun. There’s still some very fine freak out moments, like on “Smoke (E.F.S. No.59) and the title track, as well as little delves into disco and reggae. Not their peak, but still a damn fine album and perfect for Summer days.

1977’s “Saw Delight” saw a major line-up alteration. Holger Czukay moved over from the bass to using a wave receiver to bring radio broadcasts into the music. Replacing him was former Traffic member Roscko Gee on bass, alongside another Traffic escapee, Reebop Kwaku Baah on percussion. Curiously, despite the dramatic change, this album still manages to work. Opening up with the classic Can groove as used on “Moonshake” from the early album “Future Days”, it delves heavily into world music and yet still has that Can feel. When I first came across this album I considered it a dreary, middle of the road disappointment. Listening to it again, I find myself enjoying. It could be the wonderful job done in remastering it or it could just be blind hero worship. I’m not sure.

The band have declined to remaster, reissue or acknowledge the next album “Out Of Reach”, so it’s straight onto 1978’s “Can”. Here, even I loose patience. “Can” is crap. Boring, dreary, flat and annoying. It features a ridiculous version of the “Can Can” and becomes so irksome, as to make it a test of patience and endurance to get all the way through it. Holger Czukay had left at this point and was brought in to edit the record together. I can’t imagine what he thought when he heard it but to me this album is definitely not a patch on any of his classic solo albums.

However, things pick up now as the next Can album took a step back in time to their 1968 recordings, which Holger edited together into an album. Rawer and wilder than the songs from their debut album “Monster Movie”, this introduced the world to classic, lost tracks with original vocalist Malcolm Mooney such as “Butterfly” and the song Radiohead covered during their classic 1997 Glastonbury set, “Thief”. What’s even more impressive is the way the remastering has done such a good job of replicating the sound of the original vinyl version.

It all ends with the surprise 1986 reunion of the original line-up, complete with Holger and Malcolm. Strangely enough, they never got round to mixing it until 1988. The reception given at the time was rather luke-warm, but with the benefit of hindsight, “Rite Time” is actually a really good album. Nothing like any of their other albums, as it should be. Bursting with warmth, humour and personality, it’s influence could be heard on some of the most spectacular new bands to emerge after it’s release, particularly Happy Mondays and The Sugarcubes.

I know not everyone will agree with me. Many of you will think I am being too lenient on “Flow Motion” and “Saw Delight”, others will think I was too harsh on “Can” but I can honestly say that the above opinions are my own honest reactions. You, dear reader, will have to decide what you think and what you want to buy.

Tony Conrad with Faust – Outside the Dream Syndicate Alive

It’s a bit like you are listening to an instrumental part of The Velvet Underground’s “Black Angel’s Death Song” when someone sneaks up behind you and shoots you in the back of the head. As the bullet tears through your brain, there is a sudden moment when your perception of time is destroyed and those last few moments of your life are somehow spun out into a bewildering hour. This is how the last moment of music would sound.

This is a live album. This is a live album wherein minimalist violinist Tony Conrad revisits his 1972 collaboration with Faust some 23 years later in London. What makes it all the more remarkable is this was only his third meeting with the band (the second being for another mid 90s concert). It’s just Conrad with Jean-Hervé and Zappi of Faust along with premier leftfieldist Jim O’Rourke.

Let’s not mince words: the original album had a startling power but is now pretty much rendered obsolete by the sheer blistering intensity of this harsh, live version. It has much more zest, more aggression, more impact. It somehow burns itself into your mind and leaves behind such an imprint, that you can still hear it playing once the CD has ended, much like the way a bright light leaves it’s mark on your eyes after it’s switched off.

To sum it up in 2 words: shit hot

TUSSLE – KLING KLANG

TUSSLE – “KLING KLANG” (Smalltown Supersound)

What if……..

What if Danny Krivit did a disco re-edit of Neu!
What if Can’s disco experiments had really worked? A fusion of the Can sound with the finest disco rhythms?
What if the classic early P.I.L. line-up had been on E instead of speed?

What if? What if?

Here is the answer – “Kling Klang” an album by San Francisco act Tussle. These boys raise the kind of joyous noise you would associate with the likes of Can, Faust and Neu! and set it to a live but very deep, disco rhythm. Sometimes, the results veer close to the classic Public Image Ltd sound. The bass gets funky, percussion gets a good smack-down while the guitar and electronics get into the kosmische territories. Despite the association with two musical movements of the 70’s, Tussle manage to sound fresh, mainly thanks to the overwhelmingly live sound. In fact, for all their obvious orgins, Tussle manage to sound thorougly modern. The nearest likeness would have to be !!! (pronounced chk-chk-chk).

The version of the album that I have is the European one which comes with some great bonus tracks and remixes. Perfect for alternative dancefloors, krauty-parties, half-converts, dancefloor weirdos, bass-lovers, percussion-heads, Jah Wobble fans, hypeactive Kosmische fans and punk-funk lovers.

Faust in a box

It’s taken me a while to get round to reviewing this box set, as it takes a lot of getting your head around. The first disc is more rehearsals from the new Faust [JHP, Zappi, Olivier & Amaury]. The second disc is a live album they recorded in Paris in 1996 with the same line-up under the name Collectif Met(z). Disc 3 features solo material from Jean-Hervé Peron and Zappi. The fourth disc is an 8 minute VCD of footage from after the 1996 concert.

Let’s begin in the present with disc one – the modern Faust. Sometimes heavy drone-rock, sometimes lighter and more song-based. These are not studio recordings but more recordings of the new Faust in rehearsal (like the excellent Connections DVD). Someone once described acoustic performances as being “a band naked” but in many ways, these raw, primal sessions are the closest music gets to naked. Just a band playing and something in the corner recording. Not that for a minute you should associate such abrasive sound for anything substandard. It takes a certain confidence in your art to release your music in such an unrefined format, a confidence which recently led to the band Arctic Monkeys selling out large venues in the UK before they’d even released a single thanks to their demos being all over the internet. We’ve all heard great songs with massive production, now the public’s thirst for something new craves great songs without any studio trickery. That’s disc one for you.

Disc two is 6 solo tracks from Zappi and 3 from Jean-Hervé. All the tracks on here are playful and quite laid back. As you can imagine, Zappi’s pieces are heavy on rhythm, while Jean-Hervé’s are more song based. JHP’s epic “Rund ist Schoen” is a 15-minute
meditation from somewhere outdoors in London. His other 2 tracks “Melancholy on Three Strings” and “Decisions” are acoustic, laments sung in his mother tongue (French). Zappi comes up with some great songs and some equally great song titles: “Mufflet” and “Stumpling” both being delicious words that I have never heard before.

The third disc is the 1996 concert. This is a heavier, more firey kind of a beast. In fact, it’s fair to say this is a sonic assault. Brutal, provocative and, of course, utterly enjoyable. Here Faust (or Collectif Met(z) as they were known at the time) go full-on. Things unknown roar and rumble, while JHP takes to the microphone like he was summoning demons. The rhythms are heavy, driving, skull-crushing and immense. The noise is hypnotic.The sound is intense. This is a chugging beast of a concert. No old songs are played, although JHP does sing “Mamie Is Blue” at one point, but the music is so different it seems more like a nod to the original than a reworking. It sounds like the audience don’t know what to make of it – the crowd noise could be rapture or could be rage. It’s probably both.

The 4th and final disc is simply an 8 minute video filmed as the live set on disc 3 ended. One of the tracks from the set plays while over the top we hear the audience’s joy and confusion. As the camera darts around the smoke-filled venue and then does close-ups on people talking a language that I don’t speak, the effect is a disorientating as being hit repeatedly in the face with an invisible brick.

It’s a cracking little box, full of magic and indispensable for the Faust fan.

OOIOO – GOLD & GREEN

OOIOO (pronounced oh-oh-eye-oh-oh linguistics fans) is the all-girl quartet headed up by Yoshimi of The Boredoms (also immortalised in song by The Flaming Lips). However, don’t expect quirky pop-punk like Shonen Knife or quirky pop-rock ‘n’ roll a-la The 5, 6, 7, 8’s. OOIOO seem hell bent on pushing the boat out sonically and trashing any kind of genre convention. What is their music? There are little hints of post-punk, krautrock, post-rock and things not yet invented. With OOIOO the music leads the way, with vocals seemingly casually added on, like just another instrument taking part in a shared creative process. If I’m making it all sound arty, laboured or pretentious, then I am doing OOIOO a great disservice, as this album bounds along with energy, joy, innovation and is very danceable for a left-of-centre rock album thanks to some awesome drumming. “Green And Gold” is great fun to listen to and will surprise and delight in equal amounts.

AOKI Takamasa + Tujiko Noriko – 28

“28” is a collaboration of intuitively beautiful music. It is a marriage of the electronic and the voice. This album holds a warmth and soulfulness rarely encountered in digital electronica. The gorgeous, haunting vocals of Noriko are treated too at times with stuttering, layering and subtle effects. Digital funk underpins the laid-back soundscapes they create. It’s a wonderful collaboration that builds a whole world between your speakers (or in the space between your headphones). The musical marriage of cutting edge digital sound and the human voice makes a match in heaven.

LUNZ “LUNZ/REINTERPRETATIONS”`

Lunz is a collaboration between Grammy nominated composer Tim Story and Hans-Joachim Roedelius. For anyone not yet familiar with Rodelius contributions to German cosmic music, I’d recommend Cluster “Cluster II” and Harmonia “Musik Von Harmonia” as excellent starting points.

However, enough of the past, let us move on to the present. What does Lunz sound like? The music is dominated by the piano with subtle, analogue electronic accompaniment which at times serves the same purpose as an orchestra playing some of Gorecki’s more minimalist symphonies. Not until “Wobbly Flu Twilight” do the electronics begin to raise their head a little higher and take the lead. By the time we get to “Akimbo” they’re dominating the experience, rumbling along like some kind of classical music meets dub.

U2’s The Edge [2022 note: I was quoting him to try and give the music mainstream mass appeal] described this album as “A beautiful train ride of a record” but to me it’s less of trip and more of a story. It sounds like the soundtrack to some fantastic film, a journey of inner discovery and realisation like “American Beauty” but with a rural setting. The album “Lunz” has a great beauty and a gentle strength that overwhelms. This is not the sound of a man chasing past glories but a powerful and fresh piece of work, packed with inspiration and charm.

Although in some territories, “Lunz” and “Reinterpretations” are sold separately, in others they come as a double CD pack. “Reinterpretations” sees a varied array of remixes. Forget any notions of “dance remixes”, for all these reworkings seek to represent the music in a new guise but none of them seem to be trying to ‘work the dancefloor’. Instead, the remixes seem to be coming more from the leftfield, with people like former Fridge member Adem keeping large elements of the original and adding his own vocals, as does Half Cousin. Astrid Kane chips in a great remix which adds in Lloyd Cole on vocals and Manchester’s current finest Elbow also do their own remix. One of the most striking things about these remixes is how faithful they all seem to be. All of the songs are still recognisable, have a similar spirit but each one has the remixes own personality stamped onto it.

2022 note: the Bandcamp embed below is for a recent reissue of just the original album but remastered and with bonus tracks

CAN – FUTURE DAYS / SOON OVER BABALUMA / LANDED / UNLIMITED EDITION

I’m delighted to say that today the latest Can remasters arrived. To say I was happy was an understatement. Landing on my desk at work were “Future Days”, “Soon Over Babaluma, “Landed” amd “Unlimited Edition”. All 4 are packaged in exactly the same manner as the previous 4, with plenty of previously unseen photos, new sleeve notes and exceedingly good sound remastering.

I had only heard these albums on the previous CD issues, never on vinyl, so to hear these versions is like having an extra dimension added. A giant step closer to how those elusive records must sound.

Ambling through these 4 recordings, you can feel the evolution of Can. For a start, “Future Days” was their last album with their second vocalist, Damo Suzuki. For me, the marked difference with “Future Days” is that they seem to be slipping into a groove. The songs feel more affable, more laid-back but never lazy. There’s an overwhelmingly peaceful feel to this album. Could this really be the same band who recorded “Aumgn”? It’s more the band who made “Bring Me Coffe Or Tea”. Confident, laid-back but as innovative as ever.

On “Soon Over Babaluma”, they find themselves stripped down to the essential musical 4-piece that many view as the heart of Can. However, as soon as guitar wizard Michael Karoli takes the microphone for the aptly named “Dizzy Dizzy”, it becomes clear that Can have been completely unfazed by any departure. “Soon Over Babaluma” sees Can flirt teasingly with more conventional song structures, only to leave their typical forward-looking vision all over them. “Come sta, La Luna” sounds like a cross between Latin jazz, an Eastern european funeral lament and reggae. “Splash” again has a slight Latin feel to the keyboards, while Karoli teases impossible sounds out of his instrument (it’s hard to tell if he’s playing a guitar or a violin, such is his unique style). Meanwhile, Jaki & Holger bash out a frantic, nevous amphetamine rhythm.

“Landed” meanwhile sees Can take a veracious bite into rock. The album leaps into life with the big sing along of “Full Moon On The Highway”. I have to admit to being previously a bit suspect about “Landed” but hearing it here in top notch sound, it’s qualities become a lot more aparent. “Vernal Equinox” sees Karoli doing the same kind of guitar shamanism that marked him so highly on “Mother Sky” while Hogler & Jaki get frantic and Irmin gets off into the voids of space. “Red Hot Indians” is a bizare, tribal, funk stomp and “Half Past One” is the kind of psychedelia that only Can could conjure up. Of course, there’s still outrageous journies into inner space such as “Unfinished” which is over 13 minutes of Can at their furthest from earth.

One of the joys of Can is that they never made albums that sounded even remotely similar. Hell, even over the course of one album you were served such a banquet of sounds that it was hard to credit that you were listening to 1 bands’ studio album and not a well-crafted mix tape. So, when you tuck into “Unlimited Edition” which is a compilation of 19 unreleased tracks from 1968 to 1975, you know you’re in a pretty wild place. It’s got tracks with their two very distinctive vocalists, Malcolm Mooney (on 4 songs) & Damo Sazuki (on 5 songs) and introduces their E.F.S. (Ethnological Forgery Series). With the CD filled up to the brim (1 hour, 17 minutes and 31 seconds worth of Can), this is a CD that can’t let you down. It’s always a major sign of a major talent when the stuff they throw away is better than the stuff most people release.

These remastered editions really are a joy to own. They work in normal CD players, but give it that little extra when popped in a SACD player. Whatever your thoughts about CDs as a format, these remasters are essential if we want Can to be embraced by a generation that doesn’t embrace vinyl. It’s proof that we are not wrong about this music to see such care and attention lavished on it. If you’ve already got these albums on vinyl and don’t own a SACD player, then you probably needn’t worry too much about buying these, but if you have just downloaded them or bought the earlier CDs or if [SHOCK] you don’t own them at all then get your arse down to your local record shop and buy these. They may be a little dearer than this weeks chart releases, but you know for a fact that you are going to be playing them for a very long time!

Cranes – Particles & Waves

Brief history lesson, Cranes first came to prominence in 1990 with their debut release for Dedicated the “Inescapable” EP. They had the misfortune to find themselves suddenly hyped hysterically, lumped in with the shoegazing scene by some lazy music journos and then, to top it all off, even got labelled as goths by some of the even duller hacks. All of which was pretty outrageous stuff. Cranes were a breath of fresh air in the stodgy early 90’s music scene. Innovative and atmospheric, their unique sound fused classical influences and some very obscure rock ones. It was music to loose yourself in, with Alison’s indecipherable lyrics leaving the mind free to imagine and more often than not conjured images of faded grandeur, like Shelley’s “Ozymandias”.

So, 14 years on from their emergence, where are Cranes now? Their influence can be felt all over the leftfield from bands like Mum, Sigur Ros and many more. However, the band themselves continue to chart new sonic territories and continue to unnerve and delight in equal measure. Nowadays, they’re as comfortable using their guitars as they are electronics and the sound now covers a broader range than before. Gentle electronics, acoustic strummings, big dubby sounds, haunting pianos, spacey guitars and

Alison’s haunting voice all fuse beautifully. “Particles & Waves” is classic Cranes – intelligent, moving, surprising and original.

!!! – Louden Up Now

Rhythm is rebellion. From the first blasts of rhythm and blues to the beat generation right up to acid house, the simple act of dancing has constantly been sidelined by society as an extreme act of defiance. On first hearing the sounds of electronic Detroit back in the 80’s, it sounded shocking. People are still shocked to this day by Can’s tight rhythmic Krautrock.

On the back of all this arrive !!! (pronounced chk chk chk), a band who’s very name looks like an act of defiance. Although they hail from Sacramento, most of them now live in New York, hence last year’s classic single “Me and Giuliani Down By The School Yard (A True Story)”, the song where the band blast off into wild funk in the great tradition of Talking Heads, Happy Mondays and Can while the singer blasts into New York’s draconian dancing laws. It all fits, the defiance of the dance. This album encapsulates all of the above. The rhythm, the rebel and rock ‘n’ roll. This is bloody essential. From the whigged out electronics of “King’s Weed” to the foul-mouthed funky freak-out of “Pardon My Freedom”, this album is bursting with attitude and invention.